The new hydrogel reportedly outperforms current treatments for bone defects — which include bone grafts combined with serum, bioadhesives to fill the defect and injectable hydrogels that tend to experience difficulty in maintaining their shape within the body and limited adhesive strength and often an inability to simultaneously achieve both bone regeneration and adhesion.

Source: POSTECH

According to the POSTECH team, the new hydrogel system uses visible light to encourage cross-linking, wherein the primary components of the hydrogel bond and harden, simultaneously boosting mineralization wherein bone-building minerals — including calcium and phosphate — took shape within the hydrogel.

The POSTECH team explained that the hydrogel precursor consists of alginate (a natural polysaccharide derived from brown algae), RGD peptide-containing mussel adhesive protein, calcium ions, phosphonodiols and a photoinitiator.

They further highlighted that the coacervate-based formulation, which is immiscible in water, allows the hydrogel to maintain its shape and position after being injected into the body. Following exposure to visible light, cross-linking occurs, and amorphous calcium phosphate — a material used for bone grafting — is simultaneously formed. This dual action enables the hydrogel to support bone regeneration and adhesion, eliminating the need for separate bone grafts or adhesives as was required in previous studies.

An article detailing the findings, “Visible light-induced simultaneous bioactive amorphous calcium phosphate mineralization and in situ crosslinking of coacervate-based injectable underwater adhesive hydrogels for enhanced bone regeneration,” appears in the journal Biomaterials.